"Tales as old as Time…"—Fairy tales, the "originals" sources
#ReadingList: "original" fairy (& folk) tales sources, in my collection & on my tbr...
“Fairy tales, Angela Carter tells us, are not “unique one-offs,” and their narrators are neither “original” nor “godlike” nor “inspired.” To the contrary, these stories circulate in multiple versions, reconfigured by each telling to form kaleidoscopic variations with distinctly different effects.”
— Maria Tatar in the Introduction to THE CLASSIC FAIRY TALES: A Norton Critical Edition (1999)
I don’t remember the first fairy tale I ever read or was told. I don’t think I was influenced by anyone who particularly liked fairy tales or found them inspirational or important. I grew up on Disney movies having had my childhood in the 90’s but I was really only there for the music as none of the characters (bar maybe Clopin in The Hunchback of Notre Dame) really appealed to me. . . It wasn’t until I started reading fairy tale ~retellings~ that my interest was truly piqued. Ella Enchanted was my first (that I remember) & from there I segued into Donna Jo Napoli, Robin McKinley, Tolkien, & Patricia McKillip (remember, we’re still in the 90’s 😉).
My college years (& the following ~fifteen~ years of my life after graduation), however, were a disruption. In 2018, when I was truly in a life-or-death situation with my mental health, I decided to turn back to books. I turned first to witchy stories, because that’s where my gut was telling me to go, & read a ton (which I’ll talk about in a separate post, don’t worry) but it wasn’t until I discovered Helen Oyeyemi, Gregory Maguire, & Akwaeke Emezi that I started to understand a bit better about why I needed to investigate these so-called “fairy tales.”
I’ll continue that tangent elsewhere later but suffice it to say that I didn’t go straight for the “originals” after that epiphany but rather dove deep into the retellings for it was here that I suddenly found myself reflected & other folks like myself represented.
However, as I start on an ambitious project to write my own fairy tale retellings, I’ve decided the time is now to give these “originals” a good look-through. Of course, as Angela Carter so helpfully & concisely explains, there really is no such thing as an “original” fairy tale so what we have here is a selection of collections that represent earliest in-print representations of what are commonly understood to be “fairy tales” or “folk tales” or “myths.”
This list represents my starting point & includes books currently on my shelves & on my most immediate TBR (& wishlists: bookshop & amazon). Apologies for the plethora of titles that are currently out of print. I rely heavily on used bookstores & library booksales for my home library so… please forgive.
Let me know your thoughts on any of these titles or suggestions for any titles I’m missing in the comments! <3
Xx ceallaigh
“There is no truth but in old women’s tales.”
— from THE SKIN AND ITS GIRL by Sarah Cypher
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Norton Critical Editions:
THE CLASSIC FAIRY TALES: A Norton Critical Edition, edited by Maria Tatar
THE CONJURE STORIES, by Charles W. Chestnutt
→ I debated putting this collection in retellings, which I still might anyway, but due to the plethora of contextual information & resources in this particular edition it does function in some ways as an “originals” resource for me…
Annotated Norton Critical Editions:
I adore these editions but apparently they’re almost all out-of-print??
On my shelves:
THE ANNOTATED AFRICAN AMERICAN FOLKTALES, edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr. & Maria Tatar
→ this was the first edition of this series I bought & one of the first books I acquired when we moved into a house where I could have real bookshelves for the first time ever in my life <3
THE ANNOTATED ARABIAN NIGHTS: Tales from 1001 Nights, translated by Yasmine Seale & edited by Paulo Lemos Horta, (Afterword: Robert Irwin; Foreword: Omar El Akkad)
→ currently reading this one & it’s so good; this is also I think the only edition of the fairy tale collections from this series that (I think!) is still in print because it is relatively new…
THE ANNOTATED BROTHERS GRIMM, translated & edited by Maria Tatar
→ my copy I found at a library booksale, that’s why it has no dustjacket & a “friends of the library” sticker on the spine—the scream I scrumpt when I found it though because it’s not available anywhere...
Wishlist:
THE ANNOTATED CLASSIC FAIRY TALES, edited by Maria Tatar
→ my local library has a copy of this one & it’s ~stunning~; I really hope I can get lucky at a library booksale or used bookstore someday…
THE ANNOTATED HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSON, edited by Maria Tatar & translated by Julie Allen
→ another one I hope to find used somewhere eventually… I’ve never actually even seen a copy of this edition before…
Origins of Fairy Tales from Around the World (Pook Press Series):
I haven’t read any of these yet. I have a copy of the SNOW WHITE edition in the mail to me (I think? I hope?) so I will update when I have more thoughts to share but these are the titles currently on my radar from this series:
RAPUNZEL: And Other Fair Maidens in Very Tall Towers
BLUEBEARD: And Other Mysterious Men with Even Stranger Facial Hair
SNOW WHITE: And Other Examples of Jealousy Unrewarded
RUMPELSTILTSKIN: And Other Angry Imps with Rather Unusual Names
BEAUTY & THE BEAST: And Other Tales of Love in Unexpected Places
SLEEPING BEAUTY: And Other Tales of Slumbering Princesses
HANSEL & GRETEL: And Other Siblings Forsaken in Forests
CINDERELLA: And Other Girls Who Lost Their Slippers
There is also a lot of information about all of these fairy tales that is free to read on their website too!
The Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library:
RUSSIAN FAIRY TALES, collected &/or retold by Aleksandr Afanas’ev, translated by Norbert Guterman, illustrated by Alexander Alexeieff
→ I have been working out of this book for a bit while exploring Baba Yaga tales & it’s a really great, huge collection of stories.
LATIN AMERICAN FOLKTALES: Stories from Hispanic and Indian Traditions, edited by John Bierhorst
NORWEGIAN FOLK TALES, edited by Peter Christen Asbjornsen and Jorgen Moe
→ I actually do have this book but it’s shelved with my Scandinavian literature books so I always forget about it when I’m doing fairy & folk tale things…
AMERICAN INDIAN MYTHS AND LEGENDS, edited by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz
CHINESE FAIRY TALES AND FANTASIES, edited by Moss Roberts
THE VICTORIAN FAIRY TALE BOOK edited by Michael Patrick Hearn*
FAVORITE FOLKTALES FROM AROUND THE WORLD, edited by Jane Yolen
→ This collection features “more than 150 of the world’s best-loved folktales from more than forty countries and cultures including Africa, Burma, Czechoslovakia, Turkey, Vietnam, Wales, & others.”
Penguin Black Classics Editions:
THE TALE OF TALES by Giambattista Basile
→ this is my most recent acquisition & I am very excited to read these new-to-me tales…
LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD, CINDERELLA, AND OTHER CLASSIC FAIRY TALES OF CHARES PERRAULT by Angela Carter, with Jack Zipes
→ the only Charles Perrault title on this list which I feel like I need to investigate more…
THE TURNIP PRINCESS AND OTHER NEWLY DISCOVERED FAIRY TALES collected by Franz Xaver von Schönwerth
“In the 1850s, Franz Xaver von Schönwerth traversed the forests, lowlands, and mountains of northern Bavaria to record fairy tales, gaining the admiration of even the Brothers Grimm. Most of Schönwerth's work was lost—until a few years ago, when thirty boxes of manuscripts were uncovered in a German municipal archive. Now, for the first time, Schönwerth's lost fairy tales are available in English.”
→ only recently heard of this collection but need it asap!
Miscellany from my shelves:
THE ORIGINAL FOLK & FAIRY TALES OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM: The First Complete Edition, translated & edited by Jack Zipes
→ this collection represents the first version of the tales as published by the Grimms as opposed to their later versions which are edited (=censored) to be more & more conservative with each subsequent republication…
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN: The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories, translated by Erik Christian Haugaard
→ in spite of his fantastic, chaotically queer energy, HCA’s fairy tales have always been my least favorite to read the originals of mostly because the morals are usually really weird & the imagery is so overly Christianized it feels forced beyond resonance—however the ~retellings~ of his stories that I’ve read (especially The Snow Queen & The Wild Swans) are some of my favorites; also The Princess & the Pea is one of my top favorite overall fairy tales because it just feels so unhinged but also possibly incredibly relatable to me as an Austistic person? 👀 obviously this will be one that will feature in my own retellings collection…
MULES AND MEN, by Zora Neal Hurston
→ Just one of my favorite overall books as well. It has everything.
TELL MY HORSE, by Zora Neal Hurston
BENEATH THE MOON: Fairy Tales, Myths, and Divine Stories from Around the World, collected & retold by Yoshi Yoshitani
FOLKTALES OF JAPAN, edited by Keigo Seki, translated by Robert J Adams
→ I found this collection at a used bookstore; it’s very old (1963) but the first line of the summary—“These word-of-mouth tales, still related by Japanese villagers, are now for the first time available in paperback in a representative sampling”—piqued my interest. The editor, Keigo Seki, is also described as “the leading folktale scholar of Japan and has compiled the standard classification of Japanese tales, Nihon Mukashi-banashi Shusei, based on the many field collections made in the twentieth century.”
FOLKTALES OF IRAQ collected, edited, & translated by ES Stevens
→ this was a library booksale find: “the first English-language collection of Iraqi fairy tales”; opposite the title page is a photograph of a woman captioned: “Lili, the Baghdad Christian woman who told many of the stories in this volume.” My edition is an unabridged, 2006 republication of the 1931 original collection. The dedication page reads: “To the Women of ‘Iraq, with warm friendship and admiration.”
PEARLS OF WISDOM: African and Caribbean Folktales, by Raouf Mama & Mary Romney
→ another library booksale find that is a collection of African & Caribbean folktales written by a Beninese storyteller & an English teacher as a companion for a recording of the stories as a “listening and reading” exercise. The idea of using fairy & folk tales in this style of education is brilliant as it teaches reading through the oral storytelling form. The book includes age-appropriate discussion questions & vocabulary lessons for each story.
NAVAJO AND COYOTE TALES The Curly Tó Aheedlíinii Version, edited & introduced by Karl W Luckert, collected & transcribed by Father Berard Haile, OFM, with Navajo Orthography by Irvy W Goossen
→ this book (yes, yes another used bookstore find) is Volume 8 of 9 from a monograph series (American Tribal Religions) published by the University of Nebraska Press; I read about half of the Introduction in the store (Isle of Books, Bozeman, MT), & got lost in the linguistic notes of the Navajo transcriptions of the story while walking back to my hotel so that I went two blocks too far… Wish me luck in tracking down the other 8 volumes. 😆
TALES OF IRISH ENCHANTMENT by Patricia Lynch
→ this tiny little book was a souvenir from a used bookstore in Cong, Ireland—it is tiny, old, & cute & embarassingly the only collection of Irish fairy tales that I own…
SCOTTISH FOLK & FAIRY TALES selected & edited by Sir George Douglas
THE ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH FOLK TALES edited by Nicola Guy
→ concerning the previous two titles, my knowledge of British fairy tales is surprisingly thin; I have quite a few anthologies of retellings based on British fairy & folk tales though so it is about time I delved a little deeper into the “origins” of such tales insofar as it is known… (I originally was planning to include Amy Jeffs’s Storyland and Wild titles here but decided that I’ll save those for a separate “Mythology” post.)
*Final Note: There are a few other tales, like The Nutcracker, Pinocchio, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, & Peter Pan etc., that I considered adding to this list but as they are technically more or less original tales written by men, I didn’t think they quite fit the intention behind this selection, however, some of these tales can be found in The Victorian Fairy Tale Book linked above.